Price Cutting

i been seeing this happen for a good week or so now

i been selling Goblin helm for a while now for about 1,000G and i just checked the AH in Jeuno only to see the price was cut from 1,000G to 200G why must people do this?

People try to be slick to get their item sold first. (since the AH automatically sells the lowest priced item up first, which I think is unfair) then get played when someone actually bids that low.

If I want something sold first, and the price is a steady 20k, I'll throw it up for 19,700. Even if someone bids that low, it's only 300gil lost. But when idiots put it up for 15k...>:o

you know i think this Community needs to work together and form a blacklist of players found cutting prices on items

add me on the list ^^

Inc Mod pasting his response AGAIN as to why undercutting is the reason that ffxi economy works. Quit QQ'ing and farm something else till the price of w/e item ur sad about goes back up.

List start

Everyone

List over

There you go, all done for you.

Yeah, as much as it does suck, how many times have you gotten an item super cheap from the AH and was glad someone undercut.

i dont have Utsusemi: Ni :(

While it does suck, it depends on the item. I used to laugh when people would undercut the Yag drinks from 1.6k to 900g. Those sold so fast that I could put 7 up, walk to my mog house, and they'd be sold. So the people who put them up for 900 gil would sell theirs first yes, but then 20 minutes later, mine would sell for full price.

On the flip side, take an item like say, a Spectral Belt. I dont know about your server but mine, they sell for about 90k and sell very slowly. If you go to put yours up and there's 4 on, you sort of have to drop the price because the item isn't in demand.

There is an art to undercutting though and some people just don't even think about it. It's such basic economics. Most people (I know myself, anyways) bid in even numbers. 5k, 10k, 13k, 15k, 15.5k, etc. So if something is 60k, 3 sell a day, and 4 are on the AH, why put it at 30k? Try 57.8k or some totally weird number, and it usually sells.

People really only want to *** about the economics when it's against their favor. People undercut and the seller gets mad and the buyer is happy. And when the price of sushi rises, it's reverse. I never see a Cook complain that the price of Sushi is rising.

Like Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, It's always something.

You would have to list me too and anyone else who has a basic understanding of how supply and demand effect economics even in a game

Undercutting is bound to happen, especially on items like Goblin Helms. They're one of those things that drop tons when you're partying in a certain area, I've been leveling my NPC lately in Garlaige and ALWAYS come out of there with tons of beetle shells. I list mine for ~300 gil and they almost always sell, it may take a day or two, but as it's one of those things that sells a lot to crafters you just have to be patient. People that are buying that item are buying large quantities for synthing purposes obviously, so they're gonna start their bidding at like bottom dollar and increase slowly to maximize their profit/minimize their cost.

While I don't understand the rationale of someone listing a 500 gil item for 10 gil in Jeuno of all places (and tbh, I laugh my *** off when I buy something for ridiculously cheap, in kind of a "ha ha sucker you thought you were slick" way) either way, eventually the cheapo item will sell and yours will be up next. If your items are kicking back constantly at your price, then maybe you need to examine your price and see if the market can truly sustain that. Chances are it can't, hence the price drop.

Plus, don't forget to try and sell ***in places OTHER then Jeuno. I always sell Alchemy mats in Bastok, Bonecrafting crap in Windy, etc, cause that's where the guilds are. Sure, you may get a hundred gil or so less then jeuno price (although in a lot of cases you actually can make more), but the much lower tax will balance that out.

If you want your item to sell at all you have to be smart when using the auction house. Taking penitants rope for example, when i bought one there was 1 on sale and it cost me 240k, when I went to sell it there were 10+ on sale.

Now there is no way that 10 are gonna get sold within 1-2 days especially with people putting a few up per day on average anyways. So here is what happens; people see that loads are on sale and put it up for 5-10k less (not 1k less because whose to say 5 of the 10 on sale arnt undercut price as is).

This continues in a cycle until the price had dropped to 140k in a matter of two weeks. At which point people are buying them up like crazy because they are so cheap to sell them back later for big profit.

Although it is really annoying when people do it (took me 3 weeks to sell my byrnie and a 50k loss eventually because of undercutting) it's often a neccesary part of the game.

Some people are real *** about it though, as number2 and Alijah mentioned, they put stuff up for half the current selling price or something >.< and there is nothing worse than someone deliberatly setting the price low and buying up thier own stuff to sell it high later, means people end up making a huge loss on items they are selling.

Isn't that against the TOS? Like "A.H. manipulation" or whatever?

Not really sure but a lot of people do it, quite a few mentioned it on a past thread on here. Think someone said whole LS's control price of items for member benefits.

Now come on guys... Cut the OP some slack.. They 'are' only lvl 31.. I mean, they're not even out of the jungles yet.. So they don't really know that for listing a 10000g item that you need to actually 'post' it ~9715g or so to get yours sold in a timely fashion. And there will always be people that don't understand that and sell it at the 'going rate' of 10000g on the dot.

This is why we're here, to help him know these things^^

I wish prices were dropping seems the last few weeks on levia any item i though about purchasing has all gone up in price.

I’ve thought of an idea that would prevent undercutting, but I haven’t given it much thought to any possible cons the idea may or may not have.

With my idea, rather then selling to the lowest seller (Where we get our undercutters) we sell to the “Longest Seller”. Basically, whomever has their item up there for the longest time. Rather then trying to explain I’ll just give examples of how it would work.

Seller A puts item up on 1:00PM for 50 gil.
Seller B, 1:00PM 60 gil.
Seller C, 2:00PM 50 gil.
Seller D, 2:30PM 40 gil.

Scenario A: Along comes the buyer.. he wants to buy the item. He’s willing to pay 50 gil for it. He bids.. now with the current system it would go to the undercutter, Seller D. But what my way is basically “Find the players who are selling for 50 gil or less. Then find the player who’s been waiting longest. And finally, sell it to the lowest seller.”

If you follow that guideline, you’ll end up with Player A being the person who gets the item sold. He’s been waiting longest, and he’s selling for 50 gil, whereas Seller B has been selling for the same amount of time, but he wants 60 gil. Seller C hasn’t been waiting as long as Seller A. And the undercutter, Seller D, continues to wait.

Scenario B: Now along comes another player.. he’s only willing to bid 40 gil. What happens? Goes to Seller D of course, undercutting will win sometimes. But it can help be balanced by Scenario A. In today’s auction house it would have gone to Seller D.

Scenario C: Enter stage right, new buyer. He wants the item, he doesn’t have time to waste, he’s gotta have it now. He bids 75 gil. It will go to Seller A, which in today’s auction house it would go to Seller D. Why A and not D? Because A has been waiting the longest.

Scenario C2: Let’s say the previous buyer wanted 2 of the item, and he’s paying 75 gil again. He previous bought Seller A’s item, he bids again, and he would then obtain Seller B’s item. Seller B has been waiting as long as Seller A, but Seller B wanted more so Seller A’s item sold first.

So what does my scenario do? Well I’d like to think it balances things out. It takes the power out of the undercutters hands and puts it in the buyers hands. It may jumble things up a bit, but there are 2 constants: Seller will atleast always get the price they are asking for, Buyer will always pay the price they are bidding. It’s just a matter of who gets their item sold first, that’s the only difference.

I don’t proclaim this is going to change the game, I don’t think it’s ever going to be implemented, I don’t plan on trying to get it implemented, and I have by no means given it a large amount of thought. I’m not an economist, so I can’t predict how this may or may not change undercutting. I just like to make conversation with lots of rambling.

"Smurfonomics Vol. 3, Anti-Deflation Tactics Manual" Pg. 73: How to deal with undercutters and PROFIT doing it:

Option 1: Wait it out let them sell all their crap and dont contribute to the AH flooding, but we don't like that route since the other one is actually profitible soo

Option 2: There is a very very simple solution to undercutters: Monopolize them, buy out all ingredients if its a synth or just flat buy them out of stock if they sell lower than your desired target price, list and sell items at prices you want, and bingo!

Eventually when these people realize the game your playing they will either stop undercutting you or do it smarter, knowing that your going for price hikes at their expense. If they don't they are HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE but thats ok, continue to profit off them in that case.

The ones i never understood are the ones who are the sole-seller and undercut themselves, Thinking a measly price cut is going to somehow give their item demand all the sudden, the only way that increases demand is if you sell at such a dumb price people buy you out to resell.

Some may call it price fixing, some may call it manipulation, but I've been doing it for years and it works! In a Dog-Eat-Dog economy, I prefer to be the one eating.

Monopoly kids, monopoly.

I sometimes don't like the undercutting but sometimes it is the same person who is undercutting. I was trying to sell a terra staff and I put it at the price it was going for at that time and then few days and it didnt sell. so I look at the history and the same crafter....was selling it lower and lower than his own price.... For him doing that I ended up losing about 100k for his stupid undercutting.

I've sold things sometimes just by knocking off a few gil meaning if the item sold for 300k i would put it at 299,990 and it usually sells faster that way and the person who bought it paid the 300k instead of the 299,990.

You have to see who sells alot, are they undercutting it themself or raising it, when was last buy, and how many are on ah.

A nice way to avoid being undercut is to sell off the AH. You can usually find a crafter willing to buy certain items in mass amounts. I have a friend who sells all of his ram skins/horns and tiger skins/black fangs to me. :) Bypass the AH entirely.

Everyone wants gil, but everyone wants it first. In a perfect world you could contact everyone selling the same item you are selling and make a deal, set a base price and it would stay around the same. Its really not people being mean most of the time and wanting to nerf an item. i get frustrated when i'm undercut for multiple weeks and if it pisses me off enough eventually i go mad and start undercutting it myself just to free up an inventory slot.

RMT monopolization of say an NM or a specific area where said item drops in frequency or is in limited accessibility because of say, mob type. Really is the way to do it. They got it right. Unfortunately 95% of people have lives and haven't the time.

My advice is to find 2-5 sources of income and rotate. item prices tend to rise and fall like fads so your going to be rotating. I cook, fish, and farm 2-3 different areas. If your items are in a rut just bank them on a mule for awhile wait it out farm something else for awhile d=.

I was under the impression that price fixing was viewed as RMT activity according to the Terms of Service.

Hope no one on your server reads this and files a report.

It's not like i'm buying and selling to myself to edit AH lists, that IS price fixing. I'm simply strangling out competition on certain base items for synths, there is nothing at all illegitimate about that and it's very common practice in the crafting world.

Nothing at all in ToS, unless they edited it and i was unaware says: "You can't craft all of a certain item on AH." or craft too much. Obviously i leveled a craft because i enjoy crafting, logically i craft as much as possible.

Thanks for your concern but maybe if you actually read my post instead of taking one thing i said out of context and running with it, you would possibly have enough comprehension to understand that what i am doing is in no way me fixing a price, i'm selling to other people and never to myself to edit AH lists, they willingly pay on the price i list items at.

What i said was "Some people may call this price fixing" because in a sense once you choke off competition via synth mats no one else can sell it.

For instance people do this all the *** time while skilling up too, Someone is skilling up on Ice beads, they buy out ALL ice ores and have majority of bead sales on AH. This is bannable offense? Get real man.

If that person buys all of them and then resells at a higher price...
I think there is something against that.

yah id love to see myself get banned cuz some tool suggested i should on a forum anyway, i bet since he said that someone will report me just for the hell of it.

I doubt SE would take seriously anything stated on a forum post or reported instances related to a forum post, its just not their jurisdiction so to speak.

Also due to the mass volume of ***that people post on these kind of boards i doubt they'd give a flying ***, if they have ever read forum boards they would see the amount of degenerate ***that goes on and give little credit to it.

If you look at my AH history i never sell to myself or buy out things i sell, in all reality that was a completely joking post, meant for entertainment but you obviously took it as serius bizniss, i did offer it as an option to the OP though because it really is the easiest way to fight off unercutters, i do try to monopolize via synth mats at times, but what crafter doesn't?

you gotta be shitting me if your gonna say you never bought out all of something, a fellow goldsmith acting like he never cleaned out AH of something? Yah get real dude, your post was way off, to even insinuate i should be reported lol.

Ok someone is catching some feelings....

yah im crying irl.

Well you seem to be attacking me, when I wasn't even against you.
I do remember seeing something about monopolizing AHs, but I don't know the details. And...I never said crying. You seem to be jumpy. /stares.

No, i wasn't attacking you but anyway:

I got a better idea about undercutters, how bout we all just post about it enough times to change the general approval of it, seems to be what people think will work, even though there is a million threads like tihs have been made, till everybody realizes that:

when people want an item thy will pay w/e u post it for as long as its reasonable.

On the flip side, when nobody wants an item that is very rare and has big price tag, it wont sell as fast as a balance ring no matter how cheap you list it, posting under by several hundred thousands and ruining price of an item that .05 sell a day is only screwing the next guy who's item will take a month to sell also, and his for even less probably. You can't increase demand by lowering prices, people only buy what they need/want.

when 3-6 of an item per day sells there is no reason at all to undercut it, EVER.

when you undercut by 10k every sale you are HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE and anyone else who is producing same item is most likely not that HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE so stop doing it, you are only losing money and pissiing everyone else off, it's only bringing you down faster and everyone else has to follow, 1-4999 gil usually is sufficient on any item, of course a 10k item dont undercut by 4999 be reasonable and not stupid!

when you start to cut yourself out of profit and then past break even sales and then into completely losing your *** off for making something, you should just stop. no body else wants to lose profit just because you choose to keep going into negative money. This should be against TOS, lol.